Exploding Houses and Mountains

There are a couple of anthologies coming up before we get to the end of the year:

Better than Fiction 2 (Lonely Planet’s latest anthology) is only a few days away from publication and my story about a camping trip to La Meije, a mountain with a macabre history, will be rubbing shoulders with other stories by authors such as Dave Eggers, DBC Pierre, and Marina Lewycka.

Belladonna Publishing’s Strange Little Girls is not so far away either, for those of you who like the weirder end of the writing spectrum. Ekaterina Sedia, Annie Neugebauer, Rich Hawkins, and other great writers have contributed stories. I’ve written my own version of the classic ‘creepy house’ story, which was loads of fun to create. I’ve always had a soft spot for haunted houses after playing the old Atari video game with the lights off at an impressionable age.

Speaking of stuff that makes you feel a bit vulnerable, I wrote an article about Nigel Kneale’s TV work for Den of Geek and creeped myself out by watching far too much Quatermass and other such stories. He had a knack for addressing some really big themes using SF and horror; it’s that combination of intellectual and visceral that is so unsettling. I love it.

Once you get a taste for the spooky, I don’t think you ever lose it. Still, enough of Halloween. On to fireworks!